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Offline Downloading in China: A Comparative Study

Published: 28 October 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Although Internet access has become more ubiquitous in recent years, most users in China still suffer from low-quality connections, especially when downloading large files. To address this issue, hundreds of millions of China's users have resorted to technologies that allow for ``offline downloading'', where a proxy is employed to pre-download the user's requested file and then deliver the file at her convenience.
In this paper, we examine two typical implementations of offline downloading: the cloud-based approach and the smart AP (access point) based approach. Using a large-scale dataset collected from a major cloud-based system and comprehensive benchmarks of popular smart APs, we find that the two approaches are complementary while also being subject to distinct performance bottlenecks. Driven by these results, we design and implement a proof-of-concept middleware called ODR (Offline Downloading Redirector) to help users get rid of performance bottlenecks.
We feel that offline downloading has broad applicability to other areas of the world that lack broadband penetration. By deploying offline downloading technologies, coupled with our proposed ODR middleware, the Internet experiences for users in many parts of the world can be improved.

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      IMC '15: Proceedings of the 2015 Internet Measurement Conference
      October 2015
      550 pages
      ISBN:9781450338486
      DOI:10.1145/2815675
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Publication History

      Published: 28 October 2015

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      Author Tags

      1. cloud storage
      2. dtn
      3. internet
      4. offline downloading
      5. smart ap

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      • Research-article

      Funding Sources

      • High-Tech Research and Development Program of China
      • China Postdoctoral Science Fund
      • China NSF
      • CCF-Tencent Open Fund
      • US NSF

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      IMC '15
      Sponsor:
      IMC '15: Internet Measurement Conference
      October 28 - 30, 2015
      Tokyo, Japan

      Acceptance Rates

      IMC '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 31 of 96 submissions, 32%;
      Overall Acceptance Rate 277 of 1,083 submissions, 26%

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      Cited By

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      • (2023)Facebook and Tencent Data Fit a Cube Law Better than Metcalfe’s LawJournal of Computer Science and Technology10.1007/s11390-022-2845-738:2(219-227)Online publication date: 30-Mar-2023
      • (2022)Efficient incentive mechanism for video distribution on the home Internet of Things devicesFrontiers in Computing and Intelligent Systems10.54097/fcis.v1i2.17041:2(44-49)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2022
      • (2019)An Intelligent and Decentralized Content Diffusion System in Smart-Router NetworksIEICE Transactions on Communications10.1587/transcom.2018EBP3264E102.B:8(1595-1606)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2019
      • (2019)TailCutterIEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking10.1109/TNET.2019.292614227:4(1612-1628)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2019
      • (2019)HyPDS: Enabling a Hybrid File Transfer Protocol and Peer to Peer Content Distribution System for Remote Sensing Data2019 IEEE 25th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems (ICPADS)10.1109/ICPADS47876.2019.00081(529-534)Online publication date: Dec-2019
      • (2018)Toward Wi-Fi AP-Assisted Content Prefetching for an On-Demand TV Series: A Learning-Based ApproachIEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology10.1109/TCSVT.2017.268430228:7(1665-1676)Online publication date: Jul-2018
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      • (2017)xCacheProceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development10.1145/3136560.3136577(1-11)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2017
      • (2017)GraaspBoxProceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development10.1145/3136560.3136572(1-11)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2017
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